The Trail it is a Changin'

During the Civil War, able bodied men were called upon to fight, and the westward migration dwindled.  The garrisons along the trail was emptied of soliders, replaced by volunteer "galvanized Yankees", Confederate prisoners who were released to fight the Indians.

The migration pressed on, 6000 strong. Ignorance had not stopped them in the 1840s, cholera had not stopped them in the 1850s, neither Civil War nor Indians would stop them in the 1860s.  In the 1860s little had changed according to the women's journal.  Louisa Rahm, an 1860s pioneer emigrant wrote that she "washed and baked and had a hail storm."

Telegraph and stagecoach had made the route more secure.  One thing that hadn't changed was death

on the Overland Trail.  Losing a loved one on the journey, whether to cholera, dysentery, or mountain fever, left the family with the horrible dilemma of leaving the body buried alongside  the trail alone.  Natural instinct was to mark the gravesite.  Often the sun baked the ground until breaking through was similar to concrete.  Rains would wash graves away.  No matter how a grave was market - pile of rocks, piece of wood, shred of cloth, no marker would survive the weather or passage of time. 

On the other hand, Indians made a habit of digging up the dead for clothing.  This spread cholera among them.  Pioneers tried to hide the graves, often digging under the trail itself so that the oxen would trample any evidence of a grave.  Even if a grave escaped the Indians' notice, there was little chance of escaping prowling wolves or coyotes.

It was a very difficult decision for pioneers to simply bury their dead. 

Next time...Changing travel methods in 1860s on the Overland Trail

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On this Day in Pioneer History: "On April 15, 1912,  a 20th century version of the strong and resourceful women of the Wild West, Molly Brown wins lasting fame by surviving the sinking of the Titanic."

The Stewart Family Heads West

We last left Annie Stewart and her husband John (the hoarder lol) stuck on the trail with wagons too heavy to keep up with the rest of the family.  After rearranging their wagons, Annie and John kept moving but missed catching up with the rest of the family as expected.  A thousand miles later, they changed their destination and followed the southern route to California.  It was a year before the families even heard of one another again.

The elder Stewarts (Dad and his 2nd wife) also departed from the established route and took a new
road through Idaho Territory.  Along with hundreds of other emigrants they were brought close to starvation in the Cascade Mountains and did not reach Oregon until December.

The trail wore away at the emotional lives of women - it separated mothers, daughters, grandchildren.  It would be 3 years before the father and his wife would know that his daughter and her 11 children had made it to the West.  There were messages from people who had seen them, word that they had stopped at this place or that place, but his decision not to wait on his daughter and her husband had extended the time of anguish and uncertainty for the whole family.

This brings up another point - the subservience to the authority of husbands and fathers that women endured.  If journals are any proof of feelings, it generated a gulf of resentment between husbands and their wives.  Women didn't argue with a man's decision to stay or go - or to wait.  They "obeyed" whatever the man wanted, whatever he said - even if that meant never seeing your children again. Lucky for the Stewarts this was not the case.

One question about this story remains...why didn't the rest of the family share the possessions of Annie and John?  All the brothers and sisters, father, step-mother, friends certainly had room for a couple of pieces that would have lighten the wagon load and allow them to stay with the family.

 Two important patterns of the frontier in this story are the desire to hold a family together along with the desire to respond to the impulses of the road, to take the chance of the moment and move with freedom.  It seems that the father had more of the latter desire than the former.  The women, however, wrote of the agony of leaving family behind.

Next time...Rebecca Ketcham, single woman on the Overland Trail.

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This Day in Pioneer History: On October 20, 1803, On this day in 1803, the U.S. Senate approves a treaty with France providing for the purchase of the territory of Louisiana, which would double the size of the United States.

Ten Years on the Overland Trail Brings Changes

The 1840s pass into the 1850s.  Pioneers are still heading west from Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, but there are noticeable changes taking place. Not only has the size of the wagon train changed but so have the people in them.

Wagon trains are made up of larger family units.  In addition to the immediate family, extended

families now travel together...aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters and their families.  In addition to the people, these trains include herds of cattle and sheep.  One woman reported seeing at least "13,000 head of livestock" at one jumping off town.  Now extra wagons are packed with provisions. 

These wagons  had the names of the owners, place of origin and destination marked in large letters on the wagon sides or wagon covers.  No mistaking whose wagons belonged to who or where they were headed. 

The travelers were no longer just farmers either...they were business owners in search of businesses, hotel managers, carpenters, horse traders, cattlemen, and ranchers.  Their knowledge and skills were not so much for breaking ground, preferring to settle in towns instead of in the country.  Extra men tagged along with the wagon trains, drawn into families because of their willingness to work their way west.

The second western migration was a movement of monumental capital and goods.  The Overland Trail had become a commercial road.  From April through October standard fees at river crossings were $5 a wagon and 50 cents a head for livestock.  Quite a change from a couple of calico shirts in exchange for Indian help across the waters. 

Charlotte Pengra commented on the new costs of the journey in her journal in 1853:
"Our expenses have cost us nearly $75.  Persons starting on this journey should have at least $150."

Next time...Women sound off about work on the wagon trail...

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On this Day in Pioneer History:   On September 10, 1833,  President Andrew Jackson, announces that the government will no longer use the Second Bank of the United States, the country's national bank. He then used his executive power to remove all federal funds from the bank, in the final salvo of what is referred to as the "Bank War."

Reflections of a Pioneer Woman in Later Life

Nancy Hembree Snow Bogart...

In remembering the days of her journey on the Overland Trail, Nancy "Matilda" Bogart described family  life on the frontier:

"I've often been asked if we did not suffer with fear in those days but I've said no, we did not have
sense enough to realize our danger, we   others, I often wonder how they really made it through it all and retained their reason.

Crossing the Deschutes River, the women took their places in the boats, feeling they were facing death.  the frail craft would get caught in a whirlpool and the water dashing over and drenching them through and through.  The men would then plunge in the cold stream and draw the half drowned women and children ashore, build fires and partly dry them and the bedding and then start on again.  The women preferring to try it on foot, but that was no pleasure trip, carrying a small child in arms whilst another one or two clung to her skirts whilst they climbed over fallen trees and rocks.

There were both deaths and births on the way.  The dead were laid away in packing boxes but could not be covered so deep but prowling savage would exhume them to get the clothes they were buried in, then leave the body for hungry wolfe  that left bones to be gathered up and reintered by the next group that passed along.  All these things sorely taxes their powers of endurance."

Next time:  10 years after the first families went west, did it get easier? 

Today in Pioneer History:  On September 1, 1836,  Narcissa Whitman arrives in Walla Walla, Washington, becoming one of the first Anglo women to settle west of the Rocky Mountains.

The Divison of Labor on the Trail

The division of work on the Overland Trail was heavily weighted on the woman's side.  Martha Morrison recalls:

"the women helped pitch the tents, helped unload, helped yoking up the cattle.  Some of the women did nearly all the yoking.  One time my father was away hunting cattle that had been driven off by the Indians and that left Mother and the children to attend to everything."

Esther Hanna recorded her thoughts:

"I am now sitting in our carriage in the middle of a slough.  Our mules all fell down attempting to get through.  I have never witnessed anything like it.  We have put 14 yoke oxen to the wagons to get them out.  Our provisions got wet and they had to be unpacked to air and then packed again."

And we've learned that that fell under a woman's job, of course!  Many women on the trail felt reduced to hired hands. 

Martha Morrison later realized:

"We  did not know the dangers we were going through.  The idea of my Father was to get to the coast, no other place suited him and he went on until we got there where we settled in the Clatsop Plains close to the mouth of the Columbia River.  We did not arrive until the middle of January or first of Feburary.  We went down the Deschutes River in an open canoe, including all the children.  When we got down there was no way to get to the place my Father had determined to locate us,  but to wade through the tremendous swamps. 

I know some of the young men laughed at us girls, my oldest sister and me, for holding up what dresses we had to keep from miring, but we didn't think it was funny.  We finally waded through and got through and got all our goods.  Mother was a very fleshy woman and it was a terrible job for her to go through."

Yes it was an adventure for the young, but Martha's diary brings alive her father's determination who wouldn't give up until he reached the Pacific, and the hard work of that "fleshy" wife of his to get him there!

Next time...

Women's Independence on the Trail

One would think that men and women wrote of completely different subjects in their pioneer journals, wouldn't you? Men would write of hunting, dangers, fights, travel progress, the health of the livestock...while women would write of family matters and values, the beauty of the countryside, the sicknesses and things of a household nature.  In actuality, a great many journals of both men and women were interchangeable with no distinctions to which sex wrote which journal!

Riding in the same wagons, side by side, women did not always write about the call to free land or see the success of the journey.  They were full of reservations, oppositions and doubt.  For example one woman wrote of Indians as "helpful guides" and sellers of necessary services, far more so than of enemies.  Yes, they feared them, but they also noted often that their husbands were lousy buffalo hunters - settling for trading shirts for dried salmon or coming back entirely empty handed instead.  Women didn't need to prove their bravery or prowess, so they wrote of how Indians became a part of daily trail life.  An entirely different perspective from the male version.

Commonplace in the life of the 1800s pioneer wife were the long absences of their men for weeks and months at a time.  Back home, women were expected to serve as the heads of households, as well as the farm, mill or store owner.  So on the trail, a widowed woman was expected to continue alone and file her own claim alone.   No widow ever placed her wagon or her family under the protection of another family.

Can't wait to get started on the trip, can you?

Next time...illness and diseases on the trail.
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Today in Pioneer History:  On May 20, 1873,  Levi Strauss secures the necessary patents for canvas pants with copper rivets to reinforce the stress points, The Blue Jean was born!